Fiyero a three year dream, says Mills

Wicked star Rob Mills has revealed that landing the role of Fiyero was a three-year dream that started when he first heard the cast recording while appearing in an arena production of Grease in 2005.“

I listened to it and I went ‘that’s me – I’m that guy’,” Mills said.“I listened to the songs over and over again and absolutely loved it. I remember ringing my manager the next day and said I desperately wanted an audition. I’ve been in love with the show for three years and wanted to do the role from the day I first heard the recording.”

Inexperienced in musical theatre he may be but Mills, a finalist on reality television program Australian Idol, has been doing all he can to play “catch up”, including taking a recent trip to Los Angeles to see the show. There, he just happened to be in the audience with Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz. Mills admits to being a little star struck, and even asked the legendary musical theatre mainstay to sign his programme.“After seeing it in London with Adam Garcia using an English accent, I just really wanted to see it again under American terms and be even more inspired than I am already, because it had been so long since I’d seen it,” Mills said.“I also got to go on a backstage tour which gave me a grasp of the extraordinary amount of people involved in getting it on stage each day and how it all works.”

While he has been left to fight off the stigma of Australian Idol by some musical theatre fans, the American creative team were completely wowed by Mills in the audition room. And now that he’s got a taste for it, the young charmer wants to keep following a career in theatre.“

Now that this door has opened, it’s all I want to do – I’m rapt about settling down with it for at least a year,” he said.“

Wicked is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life and it’s a life changing thing for me. Idol came along and I sort of just went with it, but with this it is full steam ahead – I’ve been working so hard on it."

Wicked opens at Melbourne's Regent Theatre on July 12. Bookings: 132 849.

Aussietheatre.com

Wicked Sales Hit $7 million dollar Mark

Wicked is likely to hold the biggest box office advance in Australian theatrical history by the time it opens in Melbourne in July, with latest figures showing the production is gaining levels of sales not seen in two decades.

The musical's co-producer, John Frost, said the show is holding about $7.25 million in advance sales.

"Wicked sold 3,000 tickets on Thursday and with less than three weeks before we go into rehearsal on May 19 the demand for tickets is really hotting up," Frost said."

To get an idea of the scale of our advance bookings you have to go back to the 1980s, when Cats and Phantom set the box office alight. The Washington Post called Wicked the biggest box office success story since the peak years of The Phantom Of The Opera and I believe we are going to experience the same phenomenon."

Frost said he was particularly pleased at the interest the show is getting from across the country."

Like Phantom, around 30 per cent of our advance sales are coming from interstate: music theatre lovers from Brisbane to Perth who have been hearing about the international success of the show," he said.

Wicked, which tells the back story to The Wizard Of Oz, stars Amanda Harrison (Elphaba), Lucy Durack (Glinda), Maggie Kirkpatrick (Madame Morrible), Rob Guest (The Wizard), Rob Mills (Fiyero), Anthony Callea (Boq), Penny McNamee (Nessa) and Rodney Dobson (Dr Dillamond).

The production's ensemble cast is: Anton Berezin, Ross Hannaford, Anthony Costanzo, Todd Hampton, Ryan Sheppard, Danial J Brown, James Smith, Lockhart Brownlie, Michael Snell, Romina Villafranca, Deanna O'Leary, Liz Stiles, Christina Tan, Zoe Gertz, Patrice Tipoki, Melanie Hawkins, Ellen Simpson, Johanna Allen, James Maxfield, Glen Oliver, Matthew Hamilton, Emma Delmenico, Suzanne Steele and Suzie Mathers.

Aussietheatre.com

Full Wicked Cast Announced

The full cast list for the forthcoming Australian premiere production of Wicked has been released, with Jemma Stevenson and Erin Hasan confirmed as the standby performers for Elphaba and Glinda respectively.

The principal cast, most of which has already been announced, is Amanda Harrison (Elphaba), Lucy Durack (Glinda), Maggie Kirkpatrick (Madame Morrible), Rob Guest (The Wizard), Rob Mills (Fiyero), Anthony Callea (Boq), Penny McNamee (Nessa) and Rodney Dobson (Dr Dillamond).

The production's ensemble cast is: Anton Berezin, Ross Hannaford, Anthony Costanzo, Todd Hampton, Ryan Sheppard, Danial J Brown, James Smith, Lockhart Brownlie, Michael Snell, Romina Villafranca, Deanna O'Leary, Liz Stiles, Christina Tan, Zoe Gertz, Patrice Tipoki, Melanie Hawkins, Ellen Simpson, Johanna Allen, James Maxfield, Glen Oliver, Matthew Hamilton, Emma Delmenico, Suzanne Steele and Suzie Mathers.

Wicked, which tells the back story to the famous children's classic The Wizard Of Oz, opens at Melbourne's Regent Theatre on July 12 and is expected to run for at least a year before transferring to Sydney.

Aussietheatre.com